Tim Grobaty: Our Six-Point Platform as council candidate for Long Beach's 5th District

What we did on our summer vacation was come home from our beach cottage to find blood all over the sidewalk in front of our house.

Because we watch "Dexter," we're something of a blood-spatter expert. Also, we kill murderers by wrapping them in plastic, stabbing them and then dumping their dismembered bodies into the sea, but that's a future column.

We like a coyote as the killer. No idea about the victim. The cat Orangey, the closest thing we have to an edible pet these days, is still extant, so we're not overly concerned, other than the natural disconcertedness that attends the arrival at one's home to find blood all over the sidewalk.

At the risk of politicizing a tragedy, this kind of thing won't happen in the 5th District when we take over as councilman. You want to kill something on a sidewalk, do it in the 4th or the 3rd districts. We're taking a zero-tolerance stand on this sort of thing.

The blissfully outgoing 5th District council boss, Gerrie Schipske, who has been grappling with her job for two terms has, remarkably, made two parks out of two parks, Rosie the Riveter Park, formerly Douglas Park, is now a meditative plot in which one is encouraged to ruminate on the services of female airplane workers without the distraction of barbecues and swing sets, and Good Neighbor Park, a little island of greenery in El Dorado Park's parking lot which is adorned with a $100 gazebo for people who want to take their wedding pictures with a community center and cars as a backdrop. Meanwhile, we have blood on our sidewalk.

We do have to admit that the best part of being 5th District councilman is that it's the easiest job in all of Long Beach. It's harder to sleep in a hammock than it is to run the 5th.

Our Six-Point Platform is pretty simple:

1. Fill potholes (actually, get Public Works to do it).

2. Trim trees (ditto).

3. Hire a toothsome chief of staff.

4. Book the Elm Street Band pretty much incessantly.

5. Outlaw killing on sidewalks.

6. Something about transparency.

We have already picked out a nice office, a 60-foot Winnebago so we can set up a command center wherever there's a crisis, such as a pothole or an illness in the Elm Street Band. All we have to do now is beat our opponents.

So far, there are only a couple of minor irritations between us and the 5th District throne. One is Joe Luyben, who made a million bucks selling boxes and janitorial supplies for the JDL. Anyone who makes a million dollars selling cardboard and mop buckets is bound to be one of those did-it-my-way conservatives. The other announced candidate is Stacy Mungo who has, to her credit, managed to throw an Elm Street Band concert already. She's big on arranging for ways for neighbors to get to know one another which, in our experience, is a huge mistake more times than not.

As for filing the paperwork, we'll probably have our chief of staff handle that, but not for a while yet. We're still waiting to see what Bob Foster's plans are for running for a third term as mayor, this time as a write-in. There has never been a sitting mayor who has lost a write-in campaign for a third term.

And it would be an enjoyable third term, too, if for no other reason than he'd have us on his council rather than the current 5th District representative.